Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Top Research Topics at Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B?

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B tackles a plethora of topics, such as Ecology, Neuroscience, Genetics, Evolutionary biology and Cell biology. The presentations discussing Ecology offer insights in topics such as Ecosystem, Biodiversity and Climate change. It is focused mainly on Neuroscience, particularly Cognition.

Gene and Genome are among the concentrations of Genetics that garnered much attention in it.

• Ecology (21.28%)
• Neuroscience (10.38%)
• Genetics (7.83%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

• The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis (8742 citations)
• The structure of the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (4545 citations)
• Estimating Terrestrial Biodiversity through Extrapolation (3608 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:

The journal publications mainly deal with areas of study such as Ecology, Neuroscience, Evolutionary biology, Cognitive psychology and Genetics. Ecology research in the journal papers connects with the study of Extinction. Cognition is a major topic of Neuroscience research in the published articles.

What topics the last edition of the journal is best known for?

• Ecology
• Gene
• Internal medicine

The previous edition focused in particular on these issues:

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B mainly deals with areas of study such as Evolutionary biology, Cognitive psychology, Cognition, Theme (narrative) and Neuroscience. The journal focuses on Evolutionary biology but the discussions also offer insight into other areas such as Vertebrate, Genome, Chromosome, Gene and Epigenetics. Most of the works presented in the journal deals with Epigenetics but it intersects with the subject of DNA methylation.

It connects the study in Cognitive psychology with the closely related area of Perception. In addition to Perception research, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B aims to explore topics under Mind-wandering and Mental image. The study on Neuroscience presented in the journal intersects with the topics under Multicellular organism.

The most cited articles from the last journal are:

• Challenges in control of COVID-19: short doubling time and long delay to effect of interventions (27 citations)
• Neural versus alternative integrative systems: molecular insights into origins of neurotransmitters. (16 citations)
• Separating vascular and neuronal effects of age on fMRI BOLD signals (15 citations)

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

Top authors and change over time

The top authors publishing in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (based on the number of publications) are:

• Yadvinder Malhi (28 papers) absent at the last edition,
• John Zachary Young (23 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Roy M. Anderson (20 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Robert M. May (20 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Ian W. B. Thornton (17 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Top affiliations and change over time

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (based on the number of publications) are:

• University of Cambridge (598 papers) published 17 papers at the last edition, 10 more than at the previous edition,
• University of Oxford (538 papers) published 15 papers at the last edition, 1 less than at the previous edition,
• University College London (369 papers) published 17 papers at the last edition, 10 more than at the previous edition,
• Max Planck Society (298 papers) published 31 papers at the last edition, 9 less than at the previous edition,
• Imperial College London (249 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 4 less than at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 2.80% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 28.80% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 9.69% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 17.28% of all publications and 44.24% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

• Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
• Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
• Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
• Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
• Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.